Max Abrahms gives his capsule resume on Twitter: “#Terrorism Theorist / Northeastern Prof / Council on Foreign Relations / Center for Cyber & Homeland Security.” He is just another establishment counter-terror analyst, purveying the same old failed policies: “My recommendation to all Western governments is to make the Muslim community feel at home because discrimination only promotes radicalization.” He claims that “the connection between religion and terrorism is exaggerated” and asserts that “it can be useful to point out how Islamic State’s interpretation of Islam departs from the modal Muslim opinion. Islamic State must be exposed as extreme in terms of both its tactics and ideological preferences.”

Perhaps hoping to do just that, Abrahms recently challenged me to a debate on whether or not the Islamic State was Islamic:

That’s straightforward enough. I contacted my old friends at ABN, with Abrahms’ approval, to set up a debate via Skype that would go up on YouTube. But as the conversation continued with me inquiring of the Heritage Foundation’s James Carafano as to whether Heritage would be interested in hosting the debate, things got weird. Abrahms began to back off from the agreed-upon topic:

I took that to be a component of the debate topic that had already been agreed upon, and so agreed it could be part of the debate, but the next day Abrahms insisted that whether or not it was useful to identify the Islamic State as Islamic was the actual debate topic, not whether it was true that the Islamic State was Islamic.

After making sure that Abrahms was refusing to debate what he had initially agreed to debate, I accepted the change — but by then Abrahms was growing abusive, preening arrogantly about being a “scholar” who was going to show me how real research is done. Finally, after a long exchange, he backed out of the debate (the debate, remember, to which he had challenged me) on the grounds that I was not a scholar and hence, apparently, do not have opinions worthy of consideration. Apparently he bases this on the fact that he has a university position and I do not, and does not take into account the severe corruption and ideological lockstep of today’s universities.

In any case, the back-and-forth on Twitter is long and tedious. I am not going to bore you further with the details of it, but anyone who is interested can go see for himself or herself what happened by reading the Twitter feed. Here are some of the highlights:

The only reason why this strutting pseudo-academic puffball is of any interest is because he is sadly representative of the state of academia and counter-terror analysis today. Establishment academics are neither able nor willing to defend their views. I don’t know why Abrahms lost his nerve after challenging me to debate and fled in a cloud of ad hominem attacks and insults. After all, if I were really the dunce of his latter view, the fact remains that I have sold hundreds of thousands more books on jihad and terrorism than he has: he could beat me handily in a debate and thereby end my baneful influence forever.

But he doesn’t dare try, and I believe it is because he knows how counter-factual his assertions really are, and he knows he would not be able to defend them against me — not because I am so great a debater, but because his views just don’t stand up in the harsh light of reality. So he, like so many other establishment academics, takes refuge in degrees, as if they automatically conferred knowledge and truthfulness. In reality, if our universities were worth their salt today, they would fire any professor who ever argued that he was right and his opponent was wrong because he has more degrees than his opponent. Abrahms ought to know that the argument from authority is the weakest of all arguments. He doesn’t.

With the world on fire from Islamic jihad, the proclamations from Barack Obama, John Kerry, David Cameron and so many others that the Islamic State’s atrocities have nothing to do with Islam, “a religion of peace,” are looking increasingly ridiculous — and they’re fueled by the pseudo-scholarship of people like Max Abrahms. Abrahms and others who further this view with their fantasy pictures of Islam are running scared, despite the fact that they have made this the dominant mainstream view in America’s universities. They’re covering up their abject inability to defend this point of view with a haughty refusal to do so, and an insistence that those who hold opposing views are not worthy of their attention.

Max Abrahms in particular has made himself look ridiculous by challenging me to debate and then claiming I’m unworthy of consideration. If you read the entire Twitter exchange, you’ll see that he ties himself up in knots trying to cover for his intellectual cowardice. But his running away is understandable: when a “terrorism theorist” meets a “terrorism realist,” the results cannot be good for the “theorist.”

Max Abrahms is a poster boy for today’s mainstream academics, who are supposed to be professionally dedicated to the discussion and debate of ideas but are instead intellectually bereft propagandists, as self-infatuated as they are ignorant. Abrahms’ absurd behavior illuminates the unhappy fact that our nation’s universities are increasingly not places where genuine intellectual inquiry takes place, but centers of Leftist indoctrination, not interested in pursuing truth or examining ideas, but only in turning out cadres of thoroughly propagandized worker ants who will ever after unthinkingly toe the party line.

Sadly, that method is used by many in the social sciences field. The study of rape on college campuses that found 20% of women living on college campuses were victims of sexual assault was highly flawed and biased; the real stats are about 10% of that figure!

Seems more like there was a debate and the screwball lost; this is becoming a pattern. Good on you, Robert!

You hear cliches like: Imitation is the highest form of flattery.

Well, there should be one along the lines of: Terminally confused enablers of Islamic bigotry calling you out for debate and then resigning from the debate they stupidly entered into to fight above their weight is an at least high, probably really high, form of flattery. Maybe it needs to be a bit more catchy…

My guess is that he needs to claim superiority no matter what. He does “research”, you see, while Mr. Spencer “only” reads the source material, sees how it has been, and currently is, interpreted by its target audience, and reports on it. What is that if not research? It’s as asinine as saying “I’m anti-racist”. Well, so am I – isn’t that the default position of most people? What’s there to be gained by saying “I’m anti-racist” or “I do research with proper methods and actual scholars” other than a false sense of self-entitled smug superiority?

All those who claim that Islam is not the inspiration for terrorism should be shipped to lvie in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan to enjoy authentic Islam,. which they defend ;-)! they should take with them b. Hussein Obama, Hilary Clinton and John Kerry…

Robert Spencer would crush this guy in the debate, hence he has backed out. I have been following Robert Spencer’s work for approx. 11 years, and I have seen this same scenario happen many times. Keep up the great work Mr. Spencer!

I think Max Abrahms has political bosses up in the State Department who told him not to debate Robert Spencer and thus expose all that’s wrong with their failed theories and policies, thus giving the Republicans more ammo to defeat them.

I think Max Abrahms has political bosses up in the State Department who told him not to debate Robert Spencer and thus expose all that’s wrong with their failed theories and policies.

Wishful thinking, this. There is zero chance that anybody working at State thinks that Spencer argues the truth based on factual reality. There is 100% chance they all regard him as a self-promoting malcontent religious and racial bigot who selectively uses quotes from the Holy Ko-Ran to serve his ends. There is zero chance that anybody working at State will render a total objective analysis of the Holy Ko-Ran. It’s a beautiful system they’ve got rolling.

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.” – Winston Churchill

Max Abrahms is doing selective research to support the appeasement policy of Obama/Kerry.

Their idea is that if we give all Muslims top jobs in the West, they will be appeased and not fight us in jihad. I believe that the reversed is true. Muslims will use those top jobs to ramp up the jihad from within the West as fifth columnists. Muslim fifth columnists are already breaking down the West.

… make the Muslim community feel at home because discrimination only promotes radicalization.

The flaw in this is that there is no such thing as Islamic radicalization; there is only Moslem activation. Built into this term is excuse making for the doctrine of Islam. Q: Why not let this belief system stand on its own merits? A: It has none.

I’m used to debating actual scholars like those employed at universities. Good luck.

There are still actual scholars at universities? I did not know that. I thought they were all now fake scholars peddling half-assed scholarly “works” to shore up the failings of globo-socialism.

I think Mr. Abrahms got ahead of himself in offering to debate. Once he figured that the debate would expose him negatively in his profession as an academic, he had to back out. He could not afford the flack from his employer and students.

Here’s why.

If the debate was serious, conducted with an honest dialectical process, he would be conferring on you legitimacy. Since, you are a ‘racist ignoramus islamophobe’ according to the mainstream view, that would make it look like he was supporting you. For example, it is already obvious that he believes that the Islamic State is Islamic. (Imagine that is even a question….)

For the record, yours is the only real scholarship on Islam that I have ever found useful.

“..centers of Leftist indoctrination, not interested in pursuing truth or examining ideas, but only in turning out cadres of thoroughly propagandized worker ants who will ever after unthinkingly toe the party line.”

A further indictment of these institutions of self-aggrandizement (being a graduate of one) is that there is no attempt to match instruction with actual demand or find employment for these sadly, “thoroughly propagandized worker ants”.

Strangely, the less hireable disciplines are those most propagandized.

I remember a conversation in the break room by a university instructor who said, ” This would be a great place to work…if there were no students.”

The egoistic atmosphere of facilty meetings could easily exceed that of the Trump Boardroom.

Max Abrahms is both an academic snob and a coward (the two often go together, as here). Moreover, what passes for academic excellence in the liberal arts and humanities has greatly deteriorated over the past half century. A significant amount of published material by academics nowadays is almost unreadable and does not advance the human condition in any way. Indeed, it often sets it back with malicious nonsense masquerading as something sapient.

Modern academia is in a pitiful state and it’s only going to get worse. As Dennis Prager has observed, the two most destructive influences on modern America are television and college education. Meanwhile, academics like Max Abrahms continue their disinformation efforts to portray Islam as something noble and fine when in fact it is the oldest and best disguised form of totalitarianism on earth and thus an inveterate enemy of liberty.

Thankfully, the truth, while often elusive, can ordinarily be found out with the proper amount of digging. Robert Spencer is a magnificent “digger” and those who cherish freedom owe him a great debt because of this skill, though someone like Max Abrahms will almost certainly remain forever clueless of this, all the while basking in his academic credentials that don’t mean a damn thing since they are used to obfuscate the truth rather than reveal it.

Abrams is a Poly-Sci guy who runs with the publishers of unproven conjectures, racking ip an impressive list of useless papers. It’s no wonder he won’t debate since most of his work about terrorism are suggestions on defusing its prospective adherents and strategies.

He has not seriously considered whether ISIS is Islamic by reference to Islamic works. Much like the Imams who are embarassed when MR. Spencer quotes the Quran and they cannot refute it, Abrams has resorted to ad hominem attacks.

Prof Abrams simply cannot afford to ruin his profitable academic image by a poor performance. And if Mr. Spencer were to appear to positively show that ISIS operates on Islamic principles, many of Prof Abram’s published papers would suddenly lose value.

Being an actual graduate in science, it has always seemed ridiculous that the study of politics could call itself a science, similar to how Islamic scholars refer to the “Islamic Sciences”.

Agree with you completely, Westman, and most notably with your last paragraph. “Political Science” is a silly term. Rather, the discipline should be called “Government” and which said discipline has far more of art to it than it does any kind of science. And the term “Islamic Sciences” is so stupid, so risible, that it stands as a parody of itself.

Real Science has an empirical ability to make accurate predictions. The US foray into terrorism, Afghanistan, and Iraq was directed by so-called Political Science and it failed in all its predictions. Political Voodoo would be a more accurate term.

The thankful cries of the freed oppressed throng to their liberators is still reverberating… in my imagination.

Holding a Ph.D. in political science, I regretfully agree with you and Westman. But having written my Ph.D. on the theological roots of the rule of law ideal in post-Reformation Scotland, I’d be happy with the ancient and honorable designation of political philosophy.

“Political philosophy,” Kepha, is a perfectly acceptable term. Actually, quite an accurate one since philosophy is the use of reason alone to ascertain truth, while theology is the use of reason plus faith to discern the way of things and science is the use of reason plus tested observational methods to figure out what’s going on. So, no argument here.

Wellington, you know how much I admire your perspicacity, erudition, intelligence, and common sense.

Can you tell me *why* Abrahams would have challenged Mr Spencer in the first place ? Only to shilly shally, then attempt to change the subjects of debate, then to barefacedly *lie* about what the agreed debate subject was ? *Especially* when the evidence of the interchange is **there**, for all to see ??!!

Did even Lenin, or Stalin, think they could have got away with this blatant lying, without even a pretence of verisimilitude ?

My explanation is this, MIrren: Lesser people often make idle threats for histrionic purposes and when the threat is “taken up” by a person of substance, in this case Robert Spencer, the boastful weakling backs down.

As a man and when a boy, I have seen this time and time again where actual fisticuffs was the challenge and the one making the idle threat invariably backed down with some lame excuse. And this is far from the first time that this has happened to Robert Spencer, whereby an academic snob and coward has challenged him to a debate only to retreat thereafter with some lame excuse. As I said, it’s what lesser people do and there are a hell of a lot of lesser people in academia nowadays.

Hope you are doing well and hope too this explanation proves sufficient. Take good care, my friend.

Yes, I can see why this idiot Abrahms made the challenge; as you say, boastful weaklings love histrionics, then back down when faced with the reality.

What I can’t get my head around, is the Twitter exchanges **are there for all to see**; Abrahms makes the challenge, then changes the terms of the debate, then insults Robert, then denies he’s insulted him, then claims he won’t debate Robert because he’s not an ‘academic’ ( but that didn’t stop him from initially making the challenge), then claims he doesn’t know who Robert is, (!!!) then claims Robert responding to his tweets shows Robert is deranged, and then **denies any of the above happened**. !!!

It’s this barefaced **denial** I can’t get my head around. Is Abrahms so delusional he thinks his lies about the exchange will somehow magically erase all the evidence to the contrary ? Or is it his version of the Goebbels big lie ? Or is he so delusional he actually **believes** he didn’t say what the evidence shows he did say ?

Or perhaps it’s even simpler than that. As an ‘academic’, Abrahms doesn’t give a tuppenny damn about the truth of anything, except as it may advance his agenda, or otherwise.

As Howard Cosell would have stated it, “Down goes Abrahms! Down goes Abrahms!”

And there we see MA lying on the ground in a pool of his own sputtering arrogance.

If MA thinks, being a self-described “scholar” (cough), he could take on Spencer and make mincemeat of RS, then there’d be nothing but upside for him. He would win accolades from all the left’s stars, most especially from CAIR.

1) Abrahms decided (after reflection) that he could not win the debate if he claimed that ISIS is not Islamic.

2) The Abrahms decided to debate that it isn’t politically ‘useful’ for America to actually SAY that ISIS is Islamic…though that would be an admission that it actually is Islamic proving what Spencer wanted to prove.

3) At this point Abrahms realized he had lost the debate already, because he could not prove ISIS was not very Islamic.

4) Abrahms saw he had no way of winning either position, so he picked his ball and bat, withdrew from an unwinnable contest, called names and spit.

They live a life as privileged haram whores at the universities.
It is all too easy for liberals to get a passing grade in their Humanities courses simply by spouting out their PC Pablum at classroom circle-jerks while trying to discredit anyone who challenges their self-serving opinions and unearned entitlements.

Others who refuse to sell themselves out, have to earn their way with rigorous study.

If one wants a glimpse into the state of post-911 Academe on issues related to the nebula of the problem of Islam, one could probe this Google page of scholarly articles written by Max Abrahms, which for each article, also supplies other scholarly articles (usually by other academics) that have cited that article — and then, for each of those articles, you can access further articles that cited them, and on and on.

One could conceivably read any one of these even if one is not in Academe, through JSTOR which allows free access on a limited basis (and some of these listed on the Google page are already accessible online).

If one probed deeply into this complex morass of academic analysis of the problem of Islam (complex largely due to the fact that they are twisting every which way but loose to wrestle with the data in order to reconstruct the problem of Islam as a Non-Problem of Islam, through a process not so much of “reverse engineering” but of perverse engineering), it would be like peering into and shining a light on the brain of a madman.

No doubt Abrahms and most of his peers are more or less at the level of the folks over at Jihadica.

It certainly is like “peering into and shining a light on the brain of a madman.”

Government funds universities. Government wants the divorce of Islam and terrorism. Universities apply for research grants and then produce what government wants for distribution to students and the public’s instruction through public media.

The non-stop barrage of leftists on PBS, NPR, and the BBC is getting nauseating. Just yesterday a interview guest was whining about how the news of terrorism was causing bad things to be said about Islam and that executive authority should stop it. Actually asking for free speech to be curtailed – with no opposition or question!

Al Azhar U in Cairo says ISIS is Islamic and BHO spoke there in his first months in office.
Lauded it as a shining beacon of Islamic thought and progress.
Can’t wait for bio: ‘Barack Obama – The Lying Years’.

Yes, there are a couple of things “Islamic” about the Islamic State: it’s name, for starters.

And the fact that all its members are Muslims who spend all day every day — aside from doing martial arts training & calisthenics; rifle practice; raping female and male sex slaves; massacring & slaughtering men, women and children; destroying houses and businesses and churches and monuments; reading the Koran; praying 5 times a day; and, of course, eating and going to the bathroom according to Mohammed’s obsessive-compulsive stipulations — strenuously twisting their own Islam into a Non-Islam to be studied by Western Academics like Abrahms.

All those professors know how to do is teach from a University Academic paradigm. As if other forms of teaching and knowledge are of no value. This is what happens to these guys as they become institutionalized…like whats happening all over.

I don’t think the situation of Academe is quite as bad as some of its critics here at JW make it out to be. Their rhetoric implies thorough rot, through and through. I think it’s more of a case of a Body with serious health issues that still could be reversed, with proper intervention and a change in lifestyle — i.e., the deconstruction of the PC MC paradigm, which would require a shift in worldview.

Perhaps the cornerstone of that paradigm is the morbidly irrational perversion of Western virtues — (1) Interest in, and Respect for, the Other (2) Self-Criticism, and (3) Fairness in terms of “innocent until proven guilty”. These Western virtues have morphed into monstrous forms, to the point now where an Other who is massacring us as it threatens to destroy us — when it doesn’t slyly lie about it and pretend to be harmless — (1) continues to be “interesting” and deserving of respect (cf. Carly Fiorina, the Republican nominee for Vice-President under Tom Cruz and her nauseating speech after 911 praising Islam to the skies), while we (2) criticize ourselves for being “bigoted” and “racist” against this mass-murderous & mendacious Other and (3) we refuse to use our brains to reasonably infer from the mountains of data we have about Muslims that the principle of Fairness ought not apply to Muslims but rather that we should cultivate a rational prejudice about them. If we want to survive the 21st century as a civilization, that is.

“ I think it’s more of a case of a Body with serious health issues that still could be reversed, with proper intervention and a change in lifestyle — i.e., the deconstruction of the PC MC paradigm, which would require a shift in worldview. ”

What actual, real-world measures do you propose to achieve that “deconstruction” and “paradigm shift”?

“I don’t think the situation of Academe is quite as bad as some of its critics here at JW make it out to be.”

No, wait, let me guess: you scoff at people who say colleges are leftist indoctrination centres where leftist dogmas are taught as if they’re facts. Because, for whatever reason, your default response is to minimize and deflect criticism of the Left. It’s all about islam and people who don’t have islam on their sights 24/7 shouldn’t be in the CJ movement, and even if it were about the left then the problem would not the left (the source of the PC MC “you’re a racist bigot” dogma) but the non-leftists who fall for the “you’re a racist bigot” PC MC dogma.

Robert Spencer: Zero credentials except an internationally reknown blog and fourteen published books, including two NY Times bestsellers. Dr. Max Abrahms: assistant professor of political science at Northeastern University. Ph.D., 2010, Political Science, University of California-Los Angeles.

BTW, I had been using a reader Digg.com to access your site and for reasons unknown they stopped listing your articles on April 15. I assumed you were taking a well deserved vacation ( ha!) and am shocked at the thought you have been blocked. I wrote to them about this and am waiting their reply.

Thank you, sir, for putting JW on https. It gives me peace of mind to know that I am reading JW via end-to-end encryption, which means, if I am not mistaken, that people “listening in” at my Internet Service Provider (ISP) cannot see what comments I make on JW pages. I think they can still see that I visit JW, but nothing more.

Yes, but I hadn’t had that in mind, usernames and password protection, not having anyone peeking in on what Robert might be working on and making a political statement about controlling our own privacy.

Google are talking about giving secured sites some extra “search engine love”, that makes the effort pay for itself alone, this is a huge site, so there was a fair bit of effort here 🙂

@Mark, cheers, I won’t get much recognition for taking this on myself, but i know it’s the right thing todo. I am blessed to be working on a project that’s rolling out hundreds of letsencrypt upgrades a day. there is no reason not to convert all sites to https now.

Results need to be taken with a grain of salt, because search engines may “personalize” rankings on a per-user basis, and while I was not “logged on” to any of them when I performed this experiment, they may still be able to do some personalizing based on cookies, IP tracking, or regional origin.

Anyway, these numbers (with the exception of Bing, perhaps) are excellent! Congratulations to everyone at Jihad Watch working so hard to make this such a widely read, linked, and discussed web site!

@Sam Hawkins
If you use incognito, your previous searches will not influence the results, also, which country you are in makes a big difference, Jihad Watch does very well in Europe and Australia. Interesting that Startpage and Duckduckgo, the 2 search engines that are so friendly, we can only guess why.

Don’t know if you’re still following comments here, marc, but I just wanted to add, apart from doing SEO and hardening, please don’t feel you need to change (“improve”) anything. JW web design is just fine as it is. No need for a forum or more comfortable commenting, it would merely give more oxygen to arguers with far too much time on their hands. It ain’t broke and it don’t need fixing! 😉

lol @Sam, i get itchy fingers, so many nice new shiny templates to play with.
I am constantly tweaking what we have here, keeping it resilient to the abuse, reducing load on the server, and sometimes spiky loads to deal with, loading fast across the planet on any device without overly caching. i really wish it was a case, of “if it ain’t broke…”

Abrahms is doing a bit of sophistry (the Western form of kitman; or perhaps he picked up the Islamic form from some helpful Muslim colleagues):

“I don’t say there’s nothing Islamic about Islamic State.”

Notice he says “don’t say” not “didn’t say”. The former connotes his general position as presented in his writings; the latter would connote that he didn’t say it in the exchange with Spencer. Furthermore, as I pointed out above, conceding that one doesn’t say there is “nothing Islamic” about the Islamic State doesn’t necessarily concede anything of substance — and this won’t be known unless the apparent conceder fleshes out what that phrase entails. I.e., it could be accurate to say that while still holding a position that ends up being essentially the PC MC position that Islamic State is “twisting” and “hijacking” Islam and turning it into an “extremist” perversion of the original mainstream form which the vast majority of Muslim practice, etc.

Unless one likes to indulge in glib demonization of “Leftists”, one wonders about the pleasantly tortured mind of someone like Abrahms: Does he know that Islamic State is Islamic, but is afraid to admit it in public? Or does he sincerely believe in the convolutions of the PC MC paradigm whose explanation of the problem has become complex to the point of incoherence by a kind of psychotic application of reverse engineering (“the Islam of the vast majority of Muslims can’t be evil & dangerous, therefore any instance of evil and danger we see in the Muslim world must have some explanation other than Islamic”)?

If the latter, what motivates such odd (but alas, all too common) thinking? How do people get to the point of thinking that way? The fact that it’s all-too common and has infected the hearts and minds of multitudes of non-Leftists and non-Academics would indicate that the glib generalizations flung around by Jihad Watchers are not plausible, and that the answer is more complicated (and less comfortingly and easily amenable to simple demonization).

”The fact that it’s all-too common and has infected the hearts and minds of multitudes of non-Leftists and non-Academics would indicate that the glib generalizations flung around by Jihad Watchers are not plausible … ”

“Not when Jihad Watchers can’t seem to stop, either (and also fail to address my argument, instead indulging in snarky snipes at best…).”

Yes, you’d know a thing of two thousand about compulsions, not addressing others’ arguments and snarky snipes… Oh, not really much about snarky snipes, but you tied. God knows you tried. You were just not good at it.

Yes. He left last year, wrote a blog post on mid-November saying that he was leaving PalTalk and Jihad Watch, late-December he was on the Sam HArris forums invitind people to go to his room in PalTalk and a couple of months or so later he returned to JW under another name (his previous one being “voegelinian”).

Fessitude is not posting as anyone else here currently, and they are not Hesperado, if I see multiple users who I can track back to being the same person (which is fairly simple), I ban them both. I can see you handle them well as is, if you suspect any multiple identities, let me know, email me a link to both comments, and I’ll confirm.

Yes, what an unprecedented thing to happen, a commenter who changes his nickname and then starts posting under the new nickname! Stop the presses! Man the bastions! Ring the five-alarm bells! I seem to recall that other member of the Peanut Gallery (friend of Angemon, Mirren, gravenimage, et al.) changing his name like a gay sailor changes his underwear (he also attacked people viciously numerous times). Nobody (certainly none of his high school clique, the aforementioned Peanut Gallery) nipped at his heels for doing so.

And I have never in over 10 years on Jihad Watch posted with multiple nicknames during the same period of time. Nor do I waste my time acting like a juvenile with fresh snot running down my nose accusing others of doing it, rather than addressing their arguments reasonably and fairly (as opposed to with the rabbit-trail sophistry of the Energizer Bunny, Angemon).

”Yes, what an unprecedented thing to happen, a commenter who changes his nickname and then starts posting under the new nickname!”

No-one said it was ‘unprecedented’. Sam Hawkins was asking if you were ‘Hesperado’, we merely told him you were. Angemon also gave him the backstory of your pathetic behaviour under the moniker of ‘voegelinian. And here you are, as ‘Fessitude’ starting the whole bathetic nonsense all over again.

“Yes, what an unprecedented thing to happen, a commenter who changes his nickname and then starts posting under the new nickname! Stop the presses! Man the bastions! Ring the five-alarm bells!”

That’s not exactly what happened, was it? Hence the extra dose of snark – because, like leftist islamic apologists, that’s all you have. You *left* of your own accord and you wrote a long, sad blog post where you tried to pass as the victim and claimed that JW was riddled with flaws, including (and do write this down) “a tendency to indulge in cliquish high school behavior”. But yet, you returned out of your own free will. What does crow taste like?

“I seem to recall that other member of the Peanut Gallery (friend of Angemon, Mirren, gravenimage, et al.) changing his name like a gay sailor changes his underwear (he also attacked people viciously numerous times). Nobody (certainly none of his high school clique, the aforementioned Peanut Gallery) nipped at his heels for doing so.”

What is this if not indulging “in cliquish high school behavior”? Well, besides a lie and false comparison? Also, I have no idea of how often a gay sailor changes their underwear. Nor do I want to know how you’re privy to such details, you homophobe.

“And I have never in over 10 years on Jihad Watch posted with multiple nicknames during the same period of time.”

Or so you say. You did, however, told people (well, one person) what to reply to whom, as the debacle with “Godless” proved.

“Nor do I waste my time acting like a juvenile with fresh snot running down my nose accusing others of doing it,”

You do, however, often and repeatedly indulge in behaviours that would make a snot-nosed juvenile look a wise old man by comparison. Such as this one:

“rather than addressing their arguments reasonably and fairly (as opposed to with the rabbit-trail sophistry of the Energizer Bunny, Angemon).”

Ha ha, great joke – I never knew you had a funny bone in you. Yes, let’s ignore the facts: your so-called “addressing arguments reasonably and fairly” was mostly composed of whining about others not defending you and insulting critics. You never insulted anyone, you didn’t call people here “fucktards”, you never made asinine claims that no one in their good faith would conclude (like, for example, claiming that Mr. Spencer was expecting the islamic state to apologize for the hostages they beheaded). Everyone else is wrong, only you are right, and only you are smart enough to look over the ever increasing pile of evidence that says you’re wrong to see how right you are. And anyone disagreeing with you is, by definition, acting in bad faith and using sophistry – hell is other people, you see…

Also, and for the record, you never, ever – not even once – proved that anything I ever wrote while addressing, or talking about, you and your arguments was sophistry. You simply cried “sophistry” over and over.Because apparently, crying “sophistry” and calling someone “Bugs Bunny” (that was before I reminded you BB was actually the good guy people cheered for, as opposed to his slow-witted nemeses) is what passes as “addressing their arguments reasonably and fairly”. And I’ve challenged you, if not every single time you claimed it then almost, to show me one example of this alleged “sophistry”. I’m still waiting, you know…

Fessitude? There’s a large back-story to him, but I’ll try to be as short and fair as possible. He’s been on JW for over a decade, having been banned several times. He’s one of those people who insists that people like Robert Spencer, Raymond Ibrahim, Hugh Fitzgerald, and all other forefront figures of the CJ movement just “don’t get it” while he does, so every once in a while we’re treated to the sad spectacle of him lying about them, ascribing them words and positions they never said. He even ran a site called “Jihad Watch Watch” dedicated to explaining why the aforementioned people were “softies” or “asymptotics” who just “didn’t get” islam.

And he’s even worse to with people in the comment section who dare to criticize him (presumably because we don’t have any power over him – it’s not like we can ban him – so he can be himself without risking any consequences). Late 2014 and through 2015 he repeatedly whined about others not coming to defend him from criticism. The interesting part of the story took place backstage: he emailed people to demand them to come to JW and defend him from, among others, me. He eventually got someone from Paltalk to come over to JW to harass me:

Then they did some videos badmouthing JW users and eventually left after the Paris attacks, writing a post on his blog about how JW and PalTalk had “failed” him. Less than a month afterwards, he was on Sam Harris’ forums asking people there to go to his chatroom on PalTalk. And now he’s back on JW, like the proverbial bad penny, under another username.

I was told by long-time regulars here (I’m relatively new, having started posting regularly around 2014) I trust that he was not always like that and that years ago most of his posts were actually reasoned, informative and helpful. Where and why he went FUBAR I have no idea.

Hahahahahhaha what a sniveling little coward. He knew Mr. Spencer would beat him in any debate because there is no defense of the quran. it speaks for itself and Mr. Spencer knows the quran inside out. The quran should be deemed a hate speech and Islam declared a satanic cult not a religion. This means they would lose their religious status and no longer be able to whine about their right to push their evil agenda in our country. Max is one of those typical mouthpieces for pislam. Once confronted, they back down. They’ve got nothing but lies – why do you think they spend so much of their time trying to establish a blasphemy law.

Even a cult has religious protection under the Constitution. And I would LOVE to have the Qur’an classified as hate speech, but that can’t happen either. In America, freedom of speech means we have to allow ALL speech not just pretty speech. So when my neighbor called me an islamophobic bigot, I just smile.

Working to expose the Qur’an and Ideologies of Islam will, if successful, eliminate it. It’s a natural process. Thank Jesus!

linnte, speaking as an American living near Washington DC, I can assure you that the Bible will be classified as hate speech for mentioning Hell and failing to affirm homosexual “marriage” long before the Qur’an is so classified for exhorting people to cut off other people’s heads.

I hold no candle for Islam and the Qur’an, for I am a Christian. But I have a very great aversion to the whole “hate speech” and “hate crime” memes. As for the former, it is a convenient way for those in power to silence opinions they do not like; as for the latter, I cannot see how someone who loves his neighbor or merely shows simple respect will rob or murder that neighbor. Indeed, these memes all stink of privileging the Left’s clients du jour.

”Max Abrahms, yet another of that ever growing group of academics who are all words but no substance.”

I could cope with that, Mickey. It’s the barefaced, spit in your face **lying** I find utterly gobsmackingly unbelievable. When the actual *evidence* of what was said is there, **for everyone to read**. dumbledoresarmy posted an article on this, which lays it all out. Lies, and the rationale thereof. I think the article referred to mohammedans, but between mohammedans and leftard liars there isn’t the difference of a hair.

I don’t have time to look for it/ post it at the moment, but I will find it, and post it.

”dumbledoresarmy posted an article on this, which lays it all out. Lies, and the rationale thereof. I think the article referred to mohammedans, but between mohammedans and leftard liars there isn’t the difference of a hair.”

I was mistaken; it’s not the entire article, but quotes from it, in her comment.

Nevertheless, the similarities between mohammedan liars, and the tactics of such lowlife as Abrahms, are very clear.

1) You have conceded that ISIS is in fact Islamic.
2) You have asked to debate whether it is ‘useful’ to say ISIS is Islamic
3) You have asked to lie by pretending to Americans, Muslims and the world that ISIS is un-Islamic
4) You are in effect saying that we must lie about ISIS in order to trick Muslims to fight ISIS
5) You are saying we cannot defeat ISIS without denying that is evil and Islamic and deny that Islam is evil.
6) We did not defeat Nazism by denying Nazism is evil or by saying “Nazism is not ‘real’ racial fascism…No! There is a ‘good’ version of racial fascism!”
7) I conclude we must tell the truth to defeat ISIS and say: “ISIS represents true Islam…and it is evil.”

If you google “Max Abrahms” this Jihadwatch page comes up about 10th.
How is Maxy PhD going to live this down. I would say he will go on the attack soon. I do love the modern academic, they survive the most vicious environment of the University.
No wonder Michel Houellebecq had them as the first to covert.

his name is linked to the cowardice way up near the top now on any search of his name
The only way he can clear that it to replace it with a newer mention here when the headline will be “Max Abrahms loses Robert Spencer in debate” which will be far better for him in the long run.
I work in infosec, and have studied the mechanics of digital dirt, if any one has a debate to be had on the subject, “is leveraging digital dirt ever right, yes or no” I’m up for it.

and yea, it came to pass, that the mere thought of debating brave Knight Sir Robert did send the uninformed running. And much commotion did those on the left have , particularly when presented with irrefutable facts and logic, as is generally the case with Sir Robert.

Hello Robert…..Hope you dont mind my knighting you…when are you comming back downunder?

Do you remember Reza Aslan whining : “I am a Scholar in the History of Religion (LIE!), with PhDs in the History of Religion (LIE!) and the New Testament (LIE!), and a Professor of Religion (LIE!).”﻿ I AM AN PhDDDDDD!!!!
What’s the difference btw Reza and Max?!

I am guessing it wont and buddy will just tell everyone he won.
He will keep flip flopping and confusing things , telling everyone
hes very smart. Too smart to debate someone who is not as brilliant as himself.

“Unfortunately, his articles reflect the norm throughout the West, among millions of Leftists andnon-Leftists — inside andoutside of Academe.”

*ahem*

“I don’t think the situation of Academe and millions of leftists and non-leftisis is quite as bad as some of its critics here at JW make it out to be. Their rhetoric implies thorough rot, through and through. I think it’s more of a case of a Body with serious health issues that still could be reversed, with proper intervention and a change in lifestyle — i.e., the deconstruction of the PC MC paradigm, which would require a shift in worldview.”

I simply cannot understand islamophiliacs. They challenge someone to a debate. They offer the subject of the debate. Then, the islamophiliacs change the subject. Then, the islamophiliac attempts to slander their CHOSEN (special emphasis upon “chosen”) opponent. Then, the islamophiliac cancels the debate.

So, the same old song and dance routine that most of the others who challenge you to debate do: claim empty victory and then high-tail it and run away. Lol Nothing new here. Smh.

I think the best debate moment happened when on radio in the UK the imam, when asked if something was true regarding Islam, and the imam said, I don’t know, ask Robert, and the interviewer was flabbergasted, laughed, and said ‘but you’re an imam!”. Classic.

MAX ABRAHAMS is your typical lefty coward willing to sell you a bill of goods to the same typical empty headed students who havn’t the ability to separte bs from fact, The fact being Europe is in shambles because of unchecked islamic illegal immigration thats been going on for the last forty years. What you see now is entrenched muslims willing to take it to the streets because they are being taught by radical lefties the same crap you see being taught here to the likes of the anarchists running the streets. Nothing will change unless people stand up against this..it is their duty to do so in order to survive.

So typical. Reza Aslan is the same way. He constantly reminds everyone about his many “degrees,” but when challenged on a claim just says (paraphrase), “Hey, I have a degree; who’re you to question what I say?”

Like Richard Dawkins refusing to debate William Lane Craig, it’s obvious that Abrahms is just scared; otherwise, when given the opportunity, what person wouldn’t do all they could to demolish their opponent in the name of the truth, and show once and for all how intellectually bankrupt their opponent’s position is? But no, the one’s who are really intellectually bankrupt are also the one’s who refuse to debate, and instead hope their ad hominem attacks will suffice in the estimation of their weak-minded followers–even at the cost of making an embarrassing spectacle of themselves in the process.

Max Abrahams, maybe you can teach research methods (which any 2-cent academic should be able to anyway) but you need a lot of learning when it comes to common sense.

You are an airhead ivory tower type that reflects everything wrong with academia today. You need to get you head out from deep inside your own arse and smell the roses you imbecile. A professorship is not necessarily an indicator of intelligence. Some professors can be quite dumb. You, with your moronic theories, are a to testimony to that.

Part of the problem is that the 19th century Religionsgeschichte school’s theory that all religions undergo a similar evolution struck a very deep root in much of academia–and through it, into the thinking of key government officials, judges, and others. But I suspect that before too long, Islamic behavior will probably force people to recognize that what various religions actually teach makes a very big difference. It must be very frustrating being an EmCeePeeCee MultiCulti Islamophiliac Leftist and seeing that the Muslims who behave badly are the ones who win the intramural Islamic debates on the meaning of the Qur’an and Hadith.

@Singh the Sikh: As someone holding a Ph.D. in political science, I can tell you that “research methods” basically means quantifying the uninteresting opinions of unintelligent people and generally a way that the discipline avoids asking important questions. This is a carryover from my earlier comment to Westman and Wellington.

Always humorous to see an “academic” with lots of letters after his name have absolutely no clues about how reality works. Degrees does not equal common sense and that is sorely needed in this world. Likely he’s a “climate change” theorist as well…

This max seems to have a serious problem of communication, and a pretty fragile superego. Nothing surprising, if is true that he is heating up a seat in one of today’s university … ask him to debate about chemitrails, or area 51 aliens, I’m sure he will be less scared …

and yea, the people did cheer when good Sir Robert did ride forth, armed not with more than a lance of truth and the armor and shield of knowledge and the sword of kick butt.
And the cheering grew louder as good Sir Robert did unseat the already unhinged mad max { local troll who never should have come out from under the bridge}.
Much was there joy and louder their cries as good Sir Robert slew the troll…although many did weep, because they wished it was they that kicked troll butt upon that day.
And nary a glance at this, his most recently defeated foe, good Sir Robert rode off…not into the sunset as that would involve space travel, and this is not sci -fi., but into the vast depths of the internet, where he continued to slay trolls…but also gives us ammunition to do the same.
Looking forward to seeing you again in real life Robert when you come down under.

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